Chapter 27: Friday, March 28, 1980

"Guilt isn't always a rational thing… Guilt is a weight that will crush you, whether you deserve it or not."

-Maureen Johnson, Girl at Sea

The next two and half weeks passed without much commotion. Remus and Hermione had spent nearly every day together, researching different theories, talking about their lives, and even just sitting quietly and reading in the company of one another. They endured hours worth of teasing from James, Sirius, and Lily about how quickly they were becoming absorbed in one another. But for Hermione, it felt like she had known Remus for a lifetime, and in a sense, she had.

The Remus she knew, that she could remember, wasn't much different from this Remus. Older, yes. But twenty year old Remus Lupin and Remus from her own time, were two sides of the same coin. 1980 Remus smiled a lot more, however, and she was sure she would never tire of seeing the way his eyes wrinkled at the edges as an amused glint lit them up.

Despite their personal lives being essentially uneventful, things in the surrounding community had begun to shift. In the last fortnight there had been a surge of Death Eater sightings throughout London on both the Magical and Muggle side of things. At the last Order meeting, Sirius, Gideon, Frank, James, and Emmaline had all been sent to investigate a particularly troubling rumor that there were Death Eaters hanging around the surrounding area of St Mungo's.

The group had been gone only a day when Moody had sent for Hermione by Floo, something the Head Auror had never done before. Lily and Hermione had been researching to begin brewing a new pain potion that Remus could take before his transformations to help ease the pain of it. Remus had been sleeping on Hermione's couch and nearly fell off of it when Moody's voice called out of her fireplace.

Immediately, Hermione grabbed her black bag of healing supplies and stepped through the Floo, followed by Lily and Remus, into Dorcas Meadows' cottage. James instantly swept Lily into a tight hug, moving only to embrace Hermione and then, Remus.

"What's happened?" Hermione asked, schooling her features and trying to remain calm.

"There were at least a dozen of them," James said. "They were trying to break the wards at St. Mungo's to get inside. We attacked them from behind, but they were fast, they used spells I've never even heard of! We scared them off, I think, Gideon lost his wand and ended up beating one of them half to death with his bare hands."

"Enough," Moody interrupted. "We can play catch up once you heal Black and Prewett."

Hermione gave a stiff nod and pushed passed James, walking to the back of the house and entering the spare room where she had healed Peter and the Prewett brothers months before. At the sight of Sirius, she gasped. He was slung over the bed on his side, his arm mangled and smoking from the wound that seemed to be eating through his skin. He was biting down onto the blankets, muffling cries of pain as his arm deteriorated before her eyes. Instantly she was at his side, waving her wand to vanish the shredded leather jacket and cotton tee shirt he had been wearing, and set to work.

Hermione had seen this curse before, watched as it ate through Ron's leg after an ambush in February of 2000. Ron had been hit with the curse while dueling three Death Eaters, Yaxley caught him in the back before being taken down by Theo. Hermione swallowed back the lump in her throat as she remembered thinking that she would have to amputate Ron's leg in the middle of battle, only for Draco to rush to her side and offer help.

It took two hours to get the cursed tissue cut away and repaired from Sirius's arm.

"Ouch! Fuck, that hurts!" Sirius whined, pulling his arm away from Hermione as she dropped Dittany onto the gash in his bicep.

"Well, if you'd stop moving around so much, it wouldn't hurt as bad! Stay still or I'm going to body bind you again!"

"Some bloody healer you are!" Sirius groaned, as Hermione yanked his arm back toward her and began whispering another healing incantation under her breath as her wand traced the deep cut. "You've got piss poor bedside manner, anyone ever tell you that?"

"I'm far more gentle to people who shut up and stay still," Hermione shot back, pursing her lips and arching an eyebrow at him. "Now, I suggest that unless you want to lose your bloody arm, you'll stop pulling away from me and stay still."

Hermione looked away from Sirius as Gideon Prewett groaned from the cot on the opposite side of the room. He looked to be finally waking up, which was a good thing considering he'd been out cold since her arrival. Thankfully, Sirius and Gideon were the only two that were injured. Once Hermione had gotten Sirius to a stable position, she had been able to step away to check on Gideon to see that he wasn't critical, just unconscious. Judging by the occasional tremors, she assumed he took a heavy round of Cruciatus, and unfortunately, she didn't have much that could help with that.

Hermione conjured a piece of cloth and transfigured it into a sling to place Sirius' arm in and stepped away from him to check on Gideon.

"Gideon," she said softly, waving her wand over him to check his vitals again. "Gideon, can you hear me?"

Gideon groaned, blinking heavily as his eyes finally opened. "Wha's 'appened?" he slurred.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Hermione said. "Do remember what happened to you?"

"Lestrange," he muttered. "Broke 'is fuckin' jaw, I did."

A puff of laughter fell from Hermione's lips as she picked up his right hand and noticed his knuckles were swollen and bruised. She pressed her thumbs into the top of his hand and felt the broken bone beneath. She sighed, whispering "episkey" and continued checking him over.

"Bastard hit Emmaline with a stunner," Gideon continued, his speech coming in clearer now as he began to become more aware of himself. "Emmy… is Emmy okay?"

Hermione nodded, "She's fine," she whispered. "You and Sirius were the only two that were injured. Do you feel okay? Any lingering pain, aside from the tremors?"

"No, I'm okay."

Hermione nodded, "Get some rest then," she said. She patted his shoulder twice before turning around to look at Sirius, who was staring up at her from the bloodied cot.

"Am I all clear? I could really use a cigarette," Sirius said.

Hermione rolled her eyes, "That's a disgusting habit, but yes. You're okay to get up. No alcohol for twenty four hours though, understood? You lost a lot of blood, the replenisher I gave you was very concentrated, it won't mix well with Firewhiskey."

"I almost die and I can't even have a drink to celebrate coming out alive? What kind of rubbish is this?!"

Hermione sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You almost die and your first response is to speed that process back up by smoking cigarettes and drinking Firewhiskey. You understand how absolutely ridiculous that is, don't you?"

"I'm here for a good time, Kitten. Not for a long time," Sirius said, sending a smirk her way before slowly standing to his feet.

"With that attitude you won't make it to Tuesday," she grumbled, bending over to pick up her bag and shrinking it down to slip it into her pocket.

Hermione exited the room and took a seat in the dining room next to Remus. She smiled as he instantly pulled a small bar of chocolate from the pocket of his cardigan, unwrapping it and handing it to her. She popped the piece of chocolate in her mouth and sat back in the chair, crossing her legs at the knee and waiting for Moody to come back into the room.

"He's gone to talk to Dumbledore," Lily said, her voice hushed. "Said he'd be back soon but that was an hour ago. He told us all to wait here."

Hermione frowned, leaning forward to look at James, who was on the other side of Lily. She snapped her fingers at him to get his attention, "James!"

"What?"

"What the hell happened?" Hermione asked, "You were supposed to just be observing!"

"Oh, says the one who attacked a pack of werewolves when it was only you and Sirius!" James hissed.

"I didn't attack werewolves! I attacked the Death Eaters taking children to a werewolf den! There's a difference!"

"Yeah, well a dozen Death Eaters blowing apart the wards at a bloody hospital constitutes a good enough reason to intervene, wouldn't you say?"

"You could have been killed!" Hermione said, suddenly feeling extremely irritated at the recklessness of them jumping into a fight without warning. She knew it was hypocritical, he had just reminded her of that, but she couldn't help but feel furious with him. "You have a baby on the way, James! You can't just throw yourself into battle!"

"And what should I have done instead?!" He asked, his voice raising above the hushed tone he was using before, "Let everyone else fight without me? Emmaline was knocked unconscious, they had Gideon being tortured by one of the Lestrange brothers and Sirius was bleeding on the ground! What would you have had Frank and I do?"

Frank looked down at his hands, his face turning red with embarrassment as his name was dragged into the conversation.

"You should have left!" Hermione said, "You should have taken them, the same way Sirius took me, and apparated out of there!"

"That's a load of rubbish and you know it, 'Mione! If you had-

Hermione's next argument died in her throat as her mind drew completely blank. 'Mione. James had called her 'Mione and it sounded so much like Harry's voice that it stopped her dead in her tracks. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly becoming very dry as her heart began to race. Suddenly, she stood up, shoving her chair backward and raced through the house, pulling the front door open and stepping outside to take a deep breath of the cold late March air.

It had been five months since she had seen Harry. And really, it had been longer than that. She had only two weeks with him after he woke up from the curse, and those days had been filled with lining up everything to bring her back here. When she first arrived in this time, she could barely look at James without seeing Harry. It had gotten easier, she had been able to suppress the hurt she felt from missing Harry- from missing everyone, really. But hearing James call her that stupid nickname, the nickname she had hated for so long, made some new form of panic bloom in her chest.

She wasn't angry that James had jumped into the line of fire to help protect his friends. He was right, she had done the very same thing on multiple occasions. She was angry because, while she couldn't remember when, she knew his time was coming. And he was needlessly throwing away precious time with Lily, risking ever even seeing Harry, before he needed to.

"Hermione?"

Hermione turned around and saw James standing in the door frame, his brows pulled together in concern. She hadn't even realized she had been crying until he conjured a handkerchief and handed it to her to wipe her face with.

"Sorry," she sniffled, "I shouldn't have run out like that."

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Hermione's head bobbed as she closed her eyes, taking in a slow, shaky breath, "I'm fine. It's just been a long night."

"I didn't mean to upset you," he said, taking a step closer to her and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose before rubbing the back of his neck.

"You didn't," she said.

"Doesn't look that way."

Hermione snorted, "I suppose you're right."

"Do you want me to get Remus?" James asked, "He was going to come out, and I told him that I would. I felt like I should be the one to apologize, instead of him doing it on my behalf."

"You don't need to apologize at all," Hermione said. "It's just-

"Been a long night," he interrupted. "Yeah, You've said that."

A silence fell between them, it was thick and uncomfortable and Hermione could feel her skin crawl from the weight of it. She wanted nothing more than to go home and lay in her bed and reminisce about Harry, about James' son, and hope that he was somewhere in 2001, oblivious to the fact that she was having panic attacks in the middle of Order meetings because his father sounded just like him.

"I know you can't tell us everything, or… Anything, really. But I've noticed that sometimes you get upset at small things, is it because it reminds you of your time? Of where you're from?" James asked.

Hermione's mouth twisted to the side as she bit the inside of her cheek, nodding.

James stepped forward, pulling her against his chest and squeezing her as he wrapped his arms around her, "You'll see them again."

"I know," she whispered.

They stood like that, on the front porch embracing one another, for several long minutes. James didn't seem to mind that she was using him to comfort herself. Once she got her breathing under control, she took a step back from him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you," Hermione said. "But you could have been killed. You all could have."

"I know," he said. "It's sobering, isn't it? Things are balanced so…"

"Precariously?" Hermione offered.

James nodded, "Yeah. One minute we're laughing and getting drunk to celebrate a birthday and the next our hospital is under attack and your best mate is screaming on the ground, covered in his own blood. It gives me whiplash, sometimes."

"It's no comfort," she admitted. "But it doesn't get easier. It's immensely difficult to walk into these situations, every single time. Putting your life on the line for someone else, for people you care about is easy, it's the aftermath that is hard every single time."

James tightened his jaw, giving a curt nod as his eyes cast down and to the left, "You've done it a lot, haven't you? Put your life on the line…"

Hermione didn't need the ache in her wrist to warn her that they were treading into dangerous territory. Future talk was forbidden, for the most part, particularly when it pertained to the war. But she answered, without giving detail, "I can't lie and say that I haven't. A witch doesn't walk around with a brand on her arm for no reason."

"Yours is a brand of bravery," James said, his eyes dragging up from his feet to meet hers. "A brand of someone who has seen war."

"Mine is the brand of someone who jumped in, head first, without doing their research. Don't be stupid, James. That's all I ask. Bravery and stupidity look eerily similar to the untrained eye. Pay attention to your surroundings, to the people you align yourself with."

She didn't know why that comment felt so important to tell him. She didn't know why she needed to tell him to pay attention, but a heavy feeling settled in her gut months ago, nagging at the back of her mind in warning. An under-developed warning, but a warning nonetheless.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sunday, March 30, 1980

It was half four when Hermione woke with a start, her hand flying to her wand at her bedside table and her body forcing her to her feet as she panted for breath, her tired eyes searching her surroundings as blood rushed in her ears, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. She could feel the hair on the back of her neck, on her arms, standing up on its ends. She crept to her bedroom door, casting a muffling charm before opening it open a crack, leaning closer to listen to her surroundings.

The footsteps were slow and shuffling against the carpet in her living room, the rustling of papers and the creaking of her favorite chair by the window. Hermione held her wand at the ready, not even bothering to pull a bathrobe over her pajamas- which consisted of nothing more than an over large Weasley Wizard Wheezes tee shirt and knickers. She rounded the corner of the hall and entered the living room, her shoulders sagging with relief when she saw Remus sitting in the chair, a book open in his lap.

"Remus!" Hermione said at the end of an exasperated sigh, "It's four in the morning, what are you doing here?"

"I tried to be quiet," he said, looking up with a bit of a grimace on his face. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I couldn't sleep," Remus began to explain. "The moon is tomorrow and I always feel restless the day before... So I went for a run, and while I was running, I-I remembered reading something about valerian root steeped in an aconite solution, and how it had shown promising- albeit slightly poisonous, to calming severely disturbed wizards in the Janus Thickey ward. So, I started thinking about it…"

Remus trailed off as Hermione sat on the sofa across from him, her brows pulled together in thought. She knew aconite happened to be one of the main ingredients in the Wolfsbane potion, that was what made it so expensive, and dangerous, to make. Her eyes fell to the book in Remus' hands, which wasn't at all a book, but the latest publication of "Advanced Potion Theory Today", which held the article he was referring to.

"You know centuries ago people would plant aconite in their gardens to ward off werewolves," Hermione said, her voice barely above a whisper, though this close to the full moon she knew Remus could hear her as if she were yelling it. "It was said to be not only extremely poisonous to humans, which we know is true, but could render a werewolf defenseless if consumed in its raw form."

"Do you think the aconite solution would work?" Remus asked, a hopeful undertone to his voice.

"I think it's very dangerous, wishful thinking," Hermione said.

Remus frowned, nodding slowly as he drew in a slow breath, "You're probably right."

Hermione stood from the sofa and stepped over to the chair, pulling the journal from Remus' lap and tossed it on the table. She climbed into the chair, framing his thighs between hers and sat back on his knees, bringing her hands up to his face. She cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at her as she studied his face. His eyes were more gold than green, and with the full moon less than thirty six hours away, that wasn't a surprise. The bags under his eyes were dark and stood out against his pale complexion, a stark contrast to the silvery-pink raised scar tissue that cut lines into his face. As Hermione held his face in her hands, staring down at him, she wondered if there would ever be a passing moment that she wouldn't hate herself for not studying the Wolfsbane potion and it's properties closer before coming back to this time.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, leaning forward to press a soft kiss against his lips.

"What for?"

Her hands dropped from the sides of his face and she looked down at her palms, studying the faint scar that ran across her left palm. Because even with magic and dittany, there were only so many times you could heal the same wound over and over before a scar finally surfaced.

"I should have done more."

Five words. Five very simple words that when strung together held more meaning than most words would. Of course, Remus didn't know that. How could he? Somewhere in the pit of her stomach, in the back of her mind, when she tried to remember the details of her relationship with Remus in her own time, as she knew him, she could never pull forward what happened. She knew he must have died too soon, like so many others.

She should have done more. She should have researched the Wolfsbane before coming, should have had a better idea of what she was looking for when she got here, should have had a better cover story to keep herself emotionally distant, should have worked harder to find the answers in her own time…

Perhaps it was the exhaustion she was feeling from the recent battle at St. Mungo's, the stress thickening around them as the war began to progress, becoming more violent with each passing day. Perhaps it was homesickness, missing her friends-become-family and worrying of their wellbeings. But guilt was eating at her in this early morning hour as she sat on Remus' lap and stared into his face.

Was she wrong for developing feelings for him? Should she be doing more to suppress her own urges, to suppress her own happiness, knowing that her time here was limited? Was it selfish of her to pursue this relationship, to put Remus through the eventual heartache when she would be forced to leave, to go back to her own time?

In short, yes. But in her head, Harry's words bounced around "Will you enjoy your time there?"

Harry had asked her to enjoy it, to try and learn about his parents, about Sirius and Remus. To make memories to bring home to him, to show him all of the things he wanted to know, all of the things he would have learned of them had they not been taken from this world so young.

"Hermione?" Remus asked, his voice pulling her from her thoughts.

Hermione looked up and saw a crease of worry between Remus' brows, his mouth turned down. She pressed her thumb over the crease, smoothing his brows back to their natural state. Remus leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers in a slow, sweet kiss. As his hands landed on her hips, his lips tugging hers as her hands snaked over his shoulders, sliding into his hair, she decided that she would compartmentalize the guilt. She would stuff it away and unpack it later. For now, Remus deserved to be happy, she deserved to be happy.

.

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a/n: Happy Tuesday Y'all! Hope you liked the chapter! Leave me a review and let me know?

I just wanna really say thank you to everyone who reads and especially to those who review every chapter! It really means a lot to know that you're liking the story and taking the extra few seconds to send a little dopamine hit my way in the form of *~* n*~* is just really fucking wonderful. I appreciate every single reader, every single fave and follow, and every single review. So, you know, just like... Thank you. Thank you! And please, keep it coming! It's really motivating to see when you're struggling to get words on a page some days!

Anyway, I'm done being mushy. I love you all thank you!

xo

mimi